


Last Pennies of Kindness

by Hagar



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Background Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos, Bleak, Gen, Implied/Mentioned Suicide, Non-Graphic Violence, Post Episode: s05e14 New World Order, Pre Episode: s05e15 Power, Present Tense, Season/Series 05, Single POV, War is hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 19:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5017768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It’s Nathan who picks up a shovel next and steps into the field and Audrey right after him, her head held high in a challenge. When they return to stand with Dwight, anyone who hasn’t yet chosen a side comes with them.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Pennies of Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by Grimview and LoveChilde.

In the first 24 hours you do only what you already know. Dwight keeps three mental countdowns. The first started at the moment he found out the truth about Charlotte; the second, when he told Vince what needs to be done; and the third, when he told the town at large. The hours between the first countdown ending and the third are his window, his chance to plan anything at all before everyone else shakes off the shock and all bets are off.

The first surprises hit before that. It’s the men and women of the HPD taking their uniform off and taking up a new allegiance, it’s Haven’s civilians opening their doors to Guard instead of slamming them shut. Both are good surprises, which is why Dwight isn’t at all surprised the lines in some Guard’s faces are softening already: being welcomed is like air, when you’ve been shunned and denied your entire life.

The next surprise catches him under the streetlights, eight hours after his window is over, in the form of a whole company of the Churchgoers. As luck would have it, most of them carry hunting rifles and most of his men are all experienced with their Troubles. Dwight’ll survive the first volley, and the Churchmen won’t survive to load a second. He works that out before he registers what they’re yelling; he has just enough time to realize what that means before a dark tendril wraps itself around the ankle of one of the few Churchman armed with an automatic weapon; the next moment tendrils of blood burst out from the man’s skin and claim his entire company in seconds.

The Churchmen had found the stores empty of all food and other essentials. Vince sent the Guard to get to those first, just as he’d sent Mike Gallagher after them. _They have the food bank,_ Vince says, and, _We have more mouths to feed,_ and he’s not wrong on either count.

By then, it’s been 40 hours since Dwight had shut the door on hope, and almost 36 since he turned from it to do what he had to do, to protect. Vince uses his own window - much shorter than Dwight’s - to prevent the worst of the riots and force a choice on anyone who has yet to choose a side: join the Guard, join the Church - or starve.

No one chooses to starve, but that is not to say no one chooses to die. There’s any number of reasons to attend to the dead, but the Churchgoers walk away and Vince calls for gasoline, so it’s Dwight who picks a shovel. McHugh kicks his calf from behind, hard, and sits on him to keep him down and out of the line of Church fire. It’s Nathan who picks up the shovel instead and steps into the field with Audrey right after him, her head held high in a challenge. When they return to stand with Dwight, anyone who hasn’t yet chosen a side comes with them.

Middle of the next morning Mary Glendower walks into town flanked by Glendower girls. They’re all of them armed, sleeves rolled back to expose their tattoos; the early- and mid-teen boys and girls under the Glendower guard flinch back from the tats. There’s no need to ask where the rest of their families are; Mary explains anyway. _We killed the men, and anyone old enough to think themselves one. Mother_ \- and by that she means Gwen Glendower - _took in everyone young enough to learn. Those are the ones who remain._

Audrey steps forward together with Dwight; Nathan is a step behind. Dwight stays between the other two as they learn each kid’s name, their needs, find someone to foster them. Only when that’s done Dwight realizes Mary is still there and that she is - and has been all that time - glaring at Vince with her mother-in-law’s authority riding on her shoulders, silencing Vince with her missing son, lost under the sea with all the other Glendower men until such time as the Troubles end.

It’s not until Dwight lays down, curled up between a wall and McHugh that the timezones of his mind congeal. Lizzie would’ve turned 10 in two weeks. The youngest of their rescues is 12. Dwight can’t imagine Lizzie running with Glendower girls; can’t even hallucinate her, either, even though he’s been been awake for almost 80 hours.

In the first 24 hours you do only what you already know; the new status quo becomes real around 72. Dwight sleeps off the rest of the day and stays up through the night, talking Guard and civilians alike through it, setting them on teaching each other instead. They know what they need to know in order to survive, between them, how to grow food and mend clothes and treat illness when the hospital runs out. They know all that and more, but it’s Dwight alone pouring out words like grains of sand.

 _We can’t afford to be ruled by fear,_ he tells Vince when they argue: _Whatever it is anyone’s done, now, if we deter others with fear it will only end in death._ Vince shakes his head. _It’ll end in death either way; it’s your duty as leader to choose whose._ Dwight stares at him and, when it’s clear Vince isn’t going to make the connection, says: _I don’t kill my own._

They have to talk about it, because the semblance of routine is not all good; or rather, it won’t hold up for long. There are no communities without crime, and theirs is too fragile to put up with it. Just under half of Haven survived; Nathan and Audrey - and any of the HPD who dare go outside - spend as much time caring for the dead as they do dealing with Troubles.

Dwight sleeps whenever he thinks the people can do without him for a little while. Mostly it’s three to four hours before Vince and McHugh show up with a disagreement. One time he wakes up with the dawn, having slept the night through; Charlotte’s sitting outside his door with a Coleman lantern, her folders spread out in front of her as if she’s actually been working; her face relaxes at the sight of him, lips softening. Dwight turns his head, steps over the folders, and walks away.

They map out the Troubles that have gone wild; send out regular parties to scavenge for resources; locate plots for kitchen gardens within the perimeter they can defend; they even set up a tinker shop. Those things are all Nathan and Vince’s doing. Dwight keeps McHugh with him for almost an entire day as they move all the young children out to the Glendower compound. The matter of caretakers sorts itself out as women and girls who want to go where there are no men come to Audrey, and she brings them to Dwight. There’s talk of moving the teenagers to the farms, but that’s more complicated to properly set up.

The scream has Dwight running, bolting towards it at a dead run. He’s there almost before the scream ends. There’s no crowd; everyone has run off. The first thing he sees is the girl lying on the ground, a hole under her ribs; she’s a Benson, the youngest, Charlene. McHugh is a few paces away, restraining another girl - a Church girl. She’s furious and struggling, hard enough Dwight hears her elbow snap - then a wet crunch, garden pick hitting the ground and McHugh saying _Go, I’ll clean this,_ with the girl he just killed cradled in his arms.

Later, Charlotte comes. He recognizes her steps before she says, _I signed off on it being murder-suicide; there’ve been so many of those;_ says, _hate me for everything I’m not but I **am** a parent, _when he tells her to go; says, _And no, he didn’t tell me,_ when Dwight turns and looks at her. She puts her hand on his arm, and he doesn’t tell her to go away.

No one asks anything of him that night. Dwight doesn’t sleep anyway. It’s Audrey who comes with coffee in the morning. He worries, for a second, but no: she isn’t angry. McHugh cleaned it that well. _The world doesn’t care, about anyone,_ she says; _It’s why we have to,_ she continues when he doesn’t reply. Dwight forces a smile, and thanks her. She’s young that way, so he doesn’t say: _It’s what we do when we run out of care that matters._

**Author's Note:**

> _God has pity on kindergarten children,_   
>  _He pities school children -- less._   
>  _But adults he pities not at all._
> 
> _He abandons them,_   
>  _And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours_   
>  _In the scorching sand_   
>  _To reach the dressing station,_   
>  _Streaming with blood._
> 
> _But perhaps_   
>  _He will have pity on those who love truly_   
>  _And take care of them_   
>  _And shade them_   
>  _Like a tree over the sleeper on the public bench._
> 
> _Perhaps even we will spend on them_   
>  _Our last pennies of kindness_   
>  _Inherited from mother,_
> 
> _So that their own happiness will protect us_   
>  _Now and on other days._
> 
> \- Yehuda Amichai


End file.
